


No Good Deed

by Marked_by_moonlight



Series: She Who Walks With Death [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Harm to Children, Lisa Castle Lives, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Male Character, Trans Steve Rogers, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 00:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marked_by_moonlight/pseuds/Marked_by_moonlight
Summary: Lisa feels the lie slip from her between her teeth. She does know how she feels. She feels like the heart of a dying star, collapsing, crumbling in on itself until all that remains is dust. Her family is dead, and people look at her with pity.She hates it. She wants to rage and scream and drag them low. America was supposed to be safe. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen. Children were not meant to be parentless. They were not meant to be left alone with only memories and the taste of blood for comfort.It isn’t fair.ORLisa Castle lives and gets adopted by the most unlikely couple.





	No Good Deed

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Please don't sue me!

Lisa Castle wakes up in a hospital. The walls and room are white, and the sheets are stiff. Everything smells like its too clean. It is dark outside, the stars try and shine feebly through the glow of the city lights. 

Her throat feels raw and her eyes are barely keeping away tears. She doesn’t know where her mom is, where Frankie is. Her breath is coming in heaves when the nurse comes in. Lisa notices that the lady has dinosaurs on her scrubs. She likes dinosaurs, they’re more interesting than people. 

“I’ll be right back sweetheart. I’ve got to go get the doctor.” 

She just nods and wonders when her mom is going to get here. 

Several doctors follow in the nurse from earlier. They are all clamoring at each other and it makes her head hurt. Her hands clasp over her ears to try and stop the loud noises.

It doesn’t work and a cry slips out from between her clenched teeth. She feels the salty taste of tears in her mouth and sniffles into her hospital gown.

Her legs are longer than she remembers, and Lisa wonders just how long she’s been here and why Uncle Bill and Uncle Curt haven’t brought balloons.

The tall doctor shoo’s all the other ones out the door, then comes over to stand by her bed.

“What’s your name dear?” asks the older doctor that has salt and pepper flecked hair.

“Lisa. Lisa Castle. Do you know where my mom is?”

The shock on his face is apparent. She feels dread well up in the pit of her stomach like a lead weight. 

“Where’s my mom?” whispered Lisa.

The man sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. 

“Lisa, your mom got hurt. She and Frank Jr are dead. Your dad was the one that killed them. He’s dead too.”

She feels her breath catch in her throat. Her mind scrambles to think of a time when her dad had ever hurt any of them on purpose. Lisa finds none. But she remembers other things. She remembers her dad who read her bedtime stories she was too old for, who wore those pink bunny slippers she’d gotten him for Hanukkah until the soles were worn out, who she remembers telling her mother 

“I’m not ever gonna hurt you. You’re safe, ‘ria. My bullshit ain’t ever gonna follow me home, yeah?”

Lisa remembers hearing her mother cry after her dad said that.

Her eyes harden into chips of dark flint, a scowl visible on her face.

The doctor takes a step back and puts his hands out placatingly. This does not stop the torrent of rage and tears that bursts from Lisa’s chest.

“Asshole! That’s a bunch of bullshit! My dad would never hurt us! I may not remember what happened but it sure as hell wasn’t the load of shit you’re tryin’ to feed me!” She yells.

Her right hand reaches for the needle that’s stuck into a vein in her hand. She yanks it out and throws the heavy covers off the bed. When monitor starts beeping loudly, Lisa spares it an annoyed glance, and chucks one of the pillows at it.

Her legs swing over the edge of the bed, and her feet hit the cold tile. She stands on unsteady legs, swaying lightly. There is a sharp, too bright pain in her knee. Lisa Castle falls to the floor gasping for breath. The tile feels gritty under her palms, like it hadn't been cleaned in a while.

The doctor grasps her around the torso, and lifts her back into bed.

“Miss Castle. You’ve been very badly hurt. If you try to get up without assistance again, we will be forced to restrain you.”

Lisa just glares at him and tells him weakly to fuck off.

After the door closes, she curls around herself, and cries until she drifts off to sleep.

When her eyes flicker open, the first thing she notices is the bright sunlight filtering through the blinds. Her throat is sore, and her head hurts. She brushes her fingers lightly over the top of her head where the pain is, and feels gauze. She wonders what color it is. The school nurse that gave her the shots she needed had lots of different colored gauze.

There is a tv mounted high on the left side of the wall she’s been staring at. There is a hideous green chair underneath it for visitors. Lisa swallows in spite of the lump in her throat. The thought that there is no one coming to visit her is an alarming one. 

She curls in on herself and sniffles into her pillow until she falls asleep. 

The next day is a blur of bland hospital food and many, many doctors. They poke and prod at her like she is some sort of caged animal. The nurse with the dinosaur scrubs sneaks her a cookie when Lisa comes back from doing tests.

Two days later, Lisa Castle gets a visitor. 

Her new visitor sits down on that awful chair, and then asks her a question Lisa doesn’t know how to answer.

“I don’t know.” 

Lisa feels the lie slip from her between her teeth. She does know how she feels. She feels like the heart of a dying star, collapsing, crumbling in on itself until all that remains is dust. Her family is dead, and people look at her with pity.

She hates it. She wants to rage and scream and drag them low. America was supposed to be safe. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen. Children were not meant to be parentless. They were not meant to be left alone with only memories and the taste of blood for comfort.

It isn’t fair. 

Sometimes, late at night when she cannot sleep, what it would have been like to die on that carousel with her mom and Frank Jr. Lisa knows now, what dying is like.

It is pain, and blood. The feeling of warm wetness slicking your palms and staining them red. Of the haunted look in her father’s eyes that said he’d seen this happen too many times to count. That he did not ever expect to see it happen to his own children. Not like this, not here, not at home.

Lisa feels a bitter grief wrap itself around her heart and something in her shatters just a little more with the knowledge that her father died thinking that she was dead.

Her visitor introduces herself as Mrs. Reyes. She smiles at Lisa like old Mrs. Fitz did before she had to go to the nursing home. A smile that was more pity and sad sorrow than the joyous grin of sharp teeth her dad would do when he was happy. She snorted when she saw that her visitors eyes were glistening with unshed tears. 

What could this woman know of the things Lisa had lost?

“You have to be called Allison now. Allison Rogers. I’ll take you to your adoptive parents once you’re healed enough to be released from the hospital.”

“No offense, Ma’am. But that’s a load of bullshit. I have parents. They are dead. My name is Lisa Barbara Castle. I won’t go by anything else.” she said.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Miss Rogers. It’s for your safety. Your adoptive parents will not know about your previous circumstances.” 

Lisa just rolled her eyes and turned her back to Samantha Reyes. Her pale small hands clutched the blanket to her chest and tried in vain to hide from the coming storm.

\---------

The days pass in agonizing silence. Spring turns to Summer that turns to Fall and then Winter sits upon New York like a heavy shroud. 

Her physical therapy appointments had been going well enough. Lisa could walk now, albeit with the help of a walker and a nurse shadowing her every step. Her therapist had even said she might be able to transition to a cane soon. 

Her wounds had healed and turned into small discolored patches of scar tissue. Her face was carved with a brilliant pink scar, whether from the glass of the bullets, she had no idea.

Her hair had been shorn down almost to her scalp, and was slowly starting to regrow. She looks more like her dad than Frank Jr did, she thinks.

Christmas descends upon the hospital so suddenly it surprises her. Lisa longs for her mom’s cocoa and sugar cookies. The ones she’d sneak a bite of after her mom went to bed, before Santa came.

She would always end up falling asleep on the couch, and when she woke, there were the presents in shiny wrapping paper. This year, Lisa didn’t think she wanted anything that could be given to her. 

She just wanted her family back. 

The small, crumbling thing that was her heart was filled with enough rage and sorrow to wrangle the stars down from the heavens, she thought.

Enough to want to follow her family in death.

The nurse with the dinosaur scrubs brings her a coloring book about dinosaurs and a small box of crayons on Christmas Eve. Lisa says thank you, because it is polite, but she just wants to throw it in the garbage.

They release her on the first of the year. Reyes comes to get her at dusk, right after Lisa eats hospital food for the last time. 

Her borrowed jeans and pale pink sweatshirt are just slightly too small and chafe against her in all the wrong places to be considered comfortable. 

The drive to her adoptive parents' home is a quiet one. Snowflakes fall softly on the windshield of Reyes’ car, quickly swiped off by the repetitive motion of the wipers. She is warm, and for the first time in a while, she feels safe. Lisa is lulled to sleep by the rocking motion the car makes. 

Reyes wakes her up as they are pulling into the long gravel driveway. The shine of the headlights illuminates the snow that has been shoveled up into piles on the edge of the drive, the edges of the piles are blackened and grey. 

The house is a large two story brick with a dark colored wrap around porch. Lisa squints and tries to make out her new parents in the dark. 

Reyes stops the car, and Lisa grapples for her cane. Her fingers brush along cool metal. She nudges open the car door with her right foot, half leaned over in the seat. Lisa rights herself and steps out into the frigid air. 

The pain in her knee flares up, bright and white hot. She grits her teeth and clutches at her cane, afraid to move. After a few quick breaths, the tidal wave of pain subsides and she catches sight of the two men on the porch.

They are both beared. One is blond and steely eyed, the other has long blond hair and a prosthetic arm. 

Her mom had told her not to stare at people that had prosthetics. That staring was rude, and Castle’s were not rude. 

Lisa stares at the man’s metal arm anyway.

“Hello Allison! I’m Steve and this is my boyfriend, James.” Said the blond man. 

Her head swivels, and Lisa frowns. He looks familiar. 

She blinks when she sees Steve’s hand extended towards her. Her own hand reaches out on reflex. His hand is warm and soft. He smiles at her, and motions her into the house. Lisa turns to watch Reyes pull away and drive off into the dark. 

That’s when the pieces click together. Steve looks like the picture of Captain America that her history teacher had shown the class when they’d talked about World War Two.  
She snorts. Captain America is her adoptive father.

What a load of bullshit.


End file.
